


Advent: Indecent

by FyrMaiden



Series: Klaine Advent 2015 [9]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bullying, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 07:54:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5408924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FyrMaiden/pseuds/FyrMaiden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the bullying his son faces becomes too much, Burt Hummel asks the closed community of Dalton to take him in. They've heard only rumours of what life behind the walls is like, but it has to be better than it is outside. Inside the red brick walls, Kurt meets a boy who is willing to risk every rule he knows for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advent: Indecent

When Kurt’s father sends him to Dalton, he arrives entirely ignorant of the community’s rules and laws. Dalton keeps itself closed off from the rest of the island, its gates locked and its walls high, and the only thing to come out is the mail truck and a lot of rumours. Burt Hummel knows one thing with absolute certainty though, and it’s this: If there is one place on Lima, small as the island is, that can keep his boy safe, the high red walls of Dalton will be it. He makes the arrangements and, on damp morning in the early days of winter, he loads Kurt and two trunks of Kurt’s belongings into one of his better autos and they make the trek across the island to the imposing iron gates of the estate.

They are met at the gates, swung open in anticipation, by two young men in grey. They stand to attention as Burt’s auto rumbles towards them, and smile in greeting when he turns off the engine. 

“Mr Hummel?” asks the taller of the two, leaning down to the window, and Burt jerks his head up and down.

“‘S right,” he says, gruff but friendly. The boy’s smile doesn’t falter. 

“My name is David,” he says, and holds out of a hand. Burt shakes it, and then it’s retracted and tucked back into the sleeve of his robe. “I’m afraid you can’t come any further, sir. We’re here to transfer Kurt to the dormitories for you.” 

Burt blinks, and the boy looks chagrined. “Rules are rules, sir. I’m sorry. We can give you a moment to say goodbye?” He draws back from the car, toward the gates, and Burt turns in his seat to look at Kurt, who stares at the red brick walls and the gates, and then at Burt.

“I’ll be safe?” he says, and Burt nods but looks suddenly uncertain. Back in their small town, Kurt hasn’t been safe since he was 12, since the other boys had begun to make assumptions about him, and just recently, it has culminated in the beginnings of physical assault, in him being shoved and jostled, knocked down and hurt. He is 16 now, and Burt knows - if he can just get to 18, he can leave for the mainland, where boys like him have started to build their own communities. 

Kurt reaches for the handle of the door and steps out onto the gravel of the road. Burt steps out after him, and helps Kurt pull his trunks from the auto’s rear storage. The boys come toward them again, and Burt pulls Kurt into a fierce hug. 

“Write to me,” he says, and Kurt nods as he pulls back again. Mail trucks come out, after all. There must be mail. 

“Promise,” he says. David and his companion gather the trunks and carry them back to their own auto, and, slowly, Kurt follows after them. He glances back once, once he’s in the car, as the gates clang shut behind him. His dad stands the other side of them, watching his son disappear into the unknown. He swipes at his eyes once, and then turns away.

-

Nothing about Dalton is anything Kurt could have imagined. Behind the austere red walls, the building is sparse. The walls are white, and the staircases sweep between floors. The inhabitants - men and women - move with intent and purpose, almost silent except for the necessities. Kurt struggles with the rules, with the simple garb and the order of the days. They rise early to a simple breakfast before setting about either their lessons or their work, and they eat a simple meal in the evening before turning in for an early sleep. At his age, Kurt attends daily lessons, and he shares those with the one thing that makes his time behind the walls the most difficult. 

There is a boy, and Kurt doesn’t know how the classes work, really, but they share all of theirs so he thinks they must be close to the same age. The boy is handsome beyond Kurt’s understanding, with a mouth that is quick to smile and eyebrows that bush like triangles above wide, innocent eyes. Kurt knows nothing about him beyond his name, which is Blaine, and that he won’t meet Kurt’s gaze when he’s caught him staring.

It’s in the spring of his first year, still coming to terms with Dalton’s rules - minors will not touch physically, for instance, except to pass supplies or food - that he even manages to secure time alone with Blaine. They have a project to work on for their history class. Blaine is skittish, a blush high in his cheeks when Kurt sits beside him in the library, their shoulders brushing, and he looks away from Kurt, from his books, out toward the fields and estates of the complex.

“I don’t bite,” Kurt says, softly, and Blaine jumps before turning his head. 

“You’re from outside,” Blaine says, a frown pulling his eyebrows down into lines. Kurt wants to touch one, but knows that that would be inappropriate. He and Blaine aren’t friends. Not yet, anyway.

“I am,” he answers, and Blaine’s frown softens, becomes thoughtful. Kurt says, “I see the way you look at me, sometimes. Are you -”

Blaine nods his head. “My mother says I should be more careful,” he replies. Kurt offers him a smile that he hopes is reassuring.

“It’s okay. You can look at me that way,” he says. Emboldened, he tries, “Sometimes I think about kissing you.” 

Blaine blanches physically, and pushes himself from the table, knocking his thigh on the desktop as he stands. “No, Kurt,” he says, his skin going ashen as he backs away. He pushes the history book towards Kurt, who sees that it is open to chapter specifically about the Complex, but he’s gathering his books to himself before Kurt can begin to apologise. 

For two weeks, he doesn’t look in Kurt’s direction whilst they’re in class, and Kurt - who knows now that Blaine’s mother, at least, lives in the Complex too - knows that they won’t meet in the dormitories. Blaine will have a house that he returns to, somewhere in the estate grounds. 

It’s quite by accident that he literally bumps into Blaine in the cloister walk, his head bowed in thought and Blaine’s bent to watch his feet beat the same frustrated tattoo they always do in the morning. Blaine holds his hands up, reaches to steady Kurt, and then blushes deep red. 

“I think about kissing you too,” he says. “But I can’t - we can’t.” 

He does, though, reach between them to tangle his fingers with Kurt’s. 

Which may not seem like much, beyond the walls, for two boys their age. But for Blaine, it’s the sacrifice of the only traditions he knows.


End file.
